Alice, roughs 5/14

Note : I am posting the progression of these Alice pieces, start to finish. This stage is the rough + color study.

From Alice in Wonderland, Chapter 4, The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill :

'The first thing I've got to do,' said Alice to herself, as she wandered about in the wood, 'is to grow to my right size again; and the second thing is to find my way into that lovely garden. I think that will be the best plan.'

It sounded an excellent plan, no doubt, and very neatly and simply arranged; the only difficulty was, that she had not the smallest idea how to set about it; and while she was peering about anxiously among the trees, a little sharp bark just over her head made her look up in a great hurry.

An enormous puppy was looking down at her with large round eyes, and feebly stretching out one paw, trying to touch her. 'Poor little thing!' said Alice, in a coaxing tone, and she tried hard to whistle to it; but she was terribly frightened all the time at the thought that it might be hungry, in which case it would be very likely to eat her up in spite of all her coaxing.

Hardly knowing what she did, she picked up a little bit of stick, and held it out to the puppy; whereupon the puppy jumped into the air off all its feet at once, with a yelp of delight, and rushed at the stick, and made believe to worry it; then Alice dodged behind a great thistle, to keep herself from being run over; and the moment she appeared on the other side, the puppy made another rush at the stick, and tumbled head over heels in its hurry to get hold of it; then Alice, thinking it was very like having a game of play with a cart-horse, and expecting every moment to be trampled under its feet, ran round the thistle again; then the puppy began a series of short charges at the stick, running a very little way forwards each time and a long way back, and barking hoarsely all the while, till at last it sat down a good way off, panting, with its tongue hanging out of its mouth, and its great eyes half shut.

This seemed to Alice a good opportunity for making her escape; so she set off at once, and ran till she was quite tired and out of breath, and till the puppy's bark sounded quite faint in the distance."

This is probably the one you're just going to have to trust me on. This chapter, 4, was the problem chapter for me, deciding what I wanted to do. Nothing about the early parts of the chapter struck me. So instead of Alice stuck in the house, I decided to go with a lesser (at least in my estimation) a lesser remembered moment where Alice hides from a puppy behind a thistle right at the end of the chapter. This was once of the instances where forward momentum carried the decision. If you second guess yourself you're not going to accomplish anything. In my limited experience, if you mentally flutter around thinking about something, or worse if you talk about an idea you have you're that much the less likely to ever get around to accomplishing it. In the words of General George S. Patton :

"A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week."

Well. All that said, the rough is very rough. I don't even know if it makes sense to anyone else. I'm almost not sure why I'm showing all these roughs, since the payoff for them won't be for weeks, but nonetheless, I've started so here we are. Again, I do think of this blog as a workbench that anyone can come over and take a look over my shoulder so in that respect it makes sense. I do hope you'll hold fast until the reveal of the final art.

Next post, Monday : The Caterpillar